Karadzic: Deaths at Zuc

Trifunovic said that his VRS unit, which was composed of local residents from Vogosca, exclusively defended itself from attacks by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Sarajevo. He said that a command order not to target civilians, which was in line with the Geneva Conventions, was respected.

According to the witness, the Vogosca Brigade and its artillery were mainly involved in combat for the strategic Zuc Hill, while the First Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina “desperately tried to break through from the city”. Trifunovic said that he never interfered with or blocked humanitarian convoys.

Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska and Supreme Commander of the RS Army, is charged with terrorising civilians in Sarajevo through artillery and sniper attacks. The Hague Prosecution charges him with genocide, persecution of Bosniaks and Croats and taking UNPROFOR members hostage.

During the cross-examination Prosecutor Ann Sutherland presented Trifunovic with evidence, indicating that, as per his orders, captured Bosniaks were used for digging trenches.

The Prosecutor presented Trifunovic’s request, dated September 1992, for sending prisoners from a prison known as Planjina kuca to him and subsequent reports by the prison Manager, according to which some of the Bosniaks were killed or wounded on Zuc Hill. Without denying the truthfulness of those documents and confirming that the prisoners were killed, Trifunovic denied that his forces used captured Bosniaks as “human shields”.

“I responsibly claim that they were never used for that purpose, but exclusively for fortifying our positions,” the witness said, adding that Serb soldiers performed the same work.

When asked by the Prosecutor if he knew that using prisoners was contrary to the Geneva Conventions, Trifunovic said: “As per an order issued by the Minister of Defence, we could use them if they were not exposed to danger. We considered that they were not exposed to danger, because they went everywhere with us”.

“How can you say that they were not exposed to danger, when they were killed and wounded?” Prosecutor Sutherland asked. The witness responded by saying: “They were with us. All of us were exposed to danger”.

Prior to Trifunovic’s testimony, Zeljka Malinovic, former medical nurse at a dispensary in Otoka neighbourhood, spoke about the abuse and murder of Serbs in Sarajevo in the spring and summer of 1992.

Malinovic said that “Muslim forces” arrested her father in June 1992 and that he died in a prison in the Viktor Bubanj military barracks due to severe injuries in November 1992. Following the exhumation of his body in 1996, it was determined that both of his legs and several ribs were broken.

The witness said that, in mid April 1992 members of “Muslim forces” stuck hobnails under the nails of 17-year old Slavisa Kravljaca and that they then took him to a square, where he was stoned by a mass of people, including her neighbours. During the cross-examination the witness said that she only heard about the abuse of Kravljaca, but she did not see it.

After Malinovic had left the courtroom, presiding judge O-Gon Kwon told indictee Karadzic that the Chamber was “struggling to understand the relevance of her testimony”.

Karadzic responded by saying that the purpose of her testimony was to demonstrate “what forced us to defend our neighbourhoods for four years”.

The trial of Karadzic is due to continue on November 27.